She would pick up a seed from her food cup just like every other bird you know. But instead of shelling it and eating it right there, she'd hold it in her beak and run around her cage. Usually, she walks over to the door in hopes that someone will take her out to play.

Sometimes, she actually eats the seed successfully. Most of the time though, she would drop the stupid seed. Then she'd have to go back to the cup, pick up another seed, walk to the door and either eat it or drop it.

She was wasting more than she was eating. Grrrr. Which isn't good for my finance induced depression episodes. Especially not when I'm in the middle of the incredibly depresso task of tallying up expenses for our 2004 income tax reporting. And realizing that there were a whole bunch of things I could have put in if I knew about them and kept the receipts. But that's not the point.

I got a package of Parakeet Honey Treat Sticks last week and finally decided to try it. After vacuuming up around their cages this morning, I put one in Sid's cage and one in Skippy's. Sid munched on his for a while and ate a good chunk off the bottom.

Skippy, on the other hand, wouldn't touch hers. I have no idea why. She does eat in the morning, but she somehow didn't recognize this as food. She must have been famished by the time I realized she didn't have any. I quickly filled her seed cups and put them back in.

She ate and ate and ate with her head down in the cup. She didn't spill A THING. The floor around her cage has been almost as clean as it was when I first vacuumed, it's quite amazing.

Of course, looking at the ingredients now, I'm not sure I want to give it to them anymore, so it's no big deal if she really doesn't like the stuff. But maybe this will make her to eat more carefully/thoroughly.

[Update - January 18, 2005]

I gave her seeds, but I left the honey stick in her cage as well. I came home last night to see that she had eaten about HALF of the whole thing and not touched her seeds all day. O_O

Dumb Chicken. I TOLD you it was good stuff. It's honey, like c'mon... jeez.